<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Stumble by hellhoundsprey</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313957">Stumble</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey'>hellhoundsprey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alpha Dean Winchester, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Hysterectomy, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-consensual surgery, Omega Sam Winchester, Unresolved Emotional Tension</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:06:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29313957</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellhoundsprey/pseuds/hellhoundsprey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The prequel to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25509433">"A Blind Fool’s Luck"</a>.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Stumble</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/bathwater/gifts">husbro (bathwater)</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Like so often, Dean doesn’t understand. Not at first. What counts is—Sam, in his arms, and Dad promising that he’s okay. Still sedated, all limp and heavy and doused in disinfectant, iodine. Something about Sam’s bladder, you know how fussy he was lately?, and Dean just feels—sick.</p><p>Sammy’s breath comes flat and slow. Dean puts him into bed, slips off the shoes Dad didn’t even bother to lace up; quick quick, hush hush, act natural. If anyone can fireman-carry an unconscious child out of the postanesthesia care unit without being questioned, it’s Dad.</p><p>So pale—Dean will have to make the kid eat as soon as he wakes up. Scoop some PB into some oatmeal, maybe. They should still have some left.</p><p>Dad drops himself into one of the kitchen chairs and both groan, equally pained.</p><p>Dean is on his knees, feeling for a pulse. Counts. No thoughts. Sam doesn’t stir.</p><p>Dean tugs that sweatshirt and tee up, just a little, just to see, to check—one huge compression dressing south of Sam’s navel. Sam’s jeans aren’t zipped, aren’t buttoned.</p><p>Dean counts. No thoughts.</p><p>~</p><p>Poor kid keeps tripping balls. Disoriented, and Dean has to help him in the bathroom. Sam pees just fine.</p><p>Dean hovers, and he teases. Makes Sam pull faces with how annoyed he gets him, but he laughs, too. Just a little, though—ow, don’t make me, it hurts.</p><p>Sam’s little hands, holding just below his middle. Cupping residual baby-fat and that godforsaken dressing and he murmurs, “I mean…yeah? I kept having these like—cramps. I dunno.”</p><p>“But it’s better now?”</p><p>Sammy huffs, “I dunno,” and allows Dean to brush his hair out of his face, feel his forehead for the hundredth time today. (So warm—but, then again, they’re in bed.)</p><p>“Dad got you all fixed up.” Sam nods with his eyes drooping shut. Dean needs to say it for himself, mostly. “It’s gonna be fine, I promise. We’re not even gonna remember this a month from now. Wanna bet?”</p><p>Sam just grumbles. He’s asleep two minutes later.</p><p>Dean closes his eyes as well. Curls in, face to face with his brother. Dad keeps the TV running with a Burt Lancaster western, low volume, while he works through notes, through the pile of books he’s been dragging around since their last visit at Bobby’s. His pen scratches across the paper (bird feet on pavement). A clock ticks, somewhere.</p><p>~</p><p>“Looks pretty badass.”</p><p>Sam warns, “Don’t,” and pulls his (Dean’s) shirt back down, covers himself up. Frowns like he’s truly upset, but he doesn’t smell like it. Doesn’t smell like much anymore.</p><p>Dean scratches his armpit, laid out on the bed. Sam steps into his jeans, pulls them up. That ugly-ass hoodie from last time’s Goodwill trip. Sam is long overdue for a haircut, but Dad doesn’t press it yet.</p><p>“NSYNC called. Justin wants his pants back.”</p><p>“Shut up and give me your belt.”</p><p>“You wanna go full boy band, you gotta wear ’em <em>low</em>.”</p><p>Dean turns, though, chucks his belt at this brother. Flops back down. Shitty mattress. They’ll leave soon, fortunately. Leave all this behind. The lingering scent of that hospital. All of it.</p><p>No sense in stuffing the kid back into school for just a couple of days—Dad’s opinion, not Sam’s. Dean slips out around noon just to get some distance. I’m sore, this sucks, ugh, I hate this place, I hate everything, I hate YOU. Dad should’ve asked them to remove his tongue while they’d been at it.</p><p>Kiosk. Gummies; a paperback that reads like Sam might not detest it. A horse girl magazine, too. Gotta keep that balance.</p><p>At the counter, Dean slaps a candy bar on top because why not, and as he fumbles for the wad of bills in the back of his jeans, the change in his lint-filled pockets, his eyes drag on instinct. The cashier’s hands (wedding ring, scar on the knuckle of their thumb), a flicker of the colors of their vest, cigarettes, lighters, condoms, and as he finally, suddenly <em>understands</em>, Dean finds the money.</p><p>He can’t even check the change.</p><p>Outside, sidewalk—loud; louder somehow compared to those five minutes ago. Stuck in his thoughts, Dean just—stands. A mess in his head that uncurls, that feathers ugly.</p><p>Dean halts in his instinctive pull before he commits to stalking down a block, three. Not too much distance between Sammy and him but the risk of him having sneaked downstairs (why would he?) and following Dean (like he knew) is too big a threat.</p><p>When Dad finally picks up on the fourth try, the usual tantrum of how this is for emergencies <em>only</em>, Dean, overlaps with Dean’s clenched, “Fucking <em>why</em>, Dad?”</p><p>Silence.</p><p>Dean insists, “Why?” and John can’t speak, still. Dean’s hand hurts. His head. “Why would you let them…?! TALK to me, goddammit!”</p><p>“<em>I had to</em>,” like Dad usually talks about—commodities. Casualties. Inconveniences. “<em>You’re too young to understand these things. It wouldn’t have—it’s better this way, trust me</em>.”</p><p>Dean’s eyes burn. He squeezes them close. His nails dig into his palm, his jeans.</p><p>He might have sobbed because Dad tells him, “<em>Listen. Listen, not now, okay? Not now. I’ll be back on Saturday and I’ll explain. Okay? Saturday, Dean. Calm down. No use in upsetting him, right?</em>”</p><p>and Dean, of course, agrees, “Okay,” and he sniffles, wipes that away. Alley, bricks. February-cold. The book and magazine dig into his skin where he’s stuffed them into the back of his jeans and the sweets weigh heavy and he just—fuck. Fuck, <em>what the fuck</em>. “Dad?”</p><p>John repeats, “<em>Saturday</em>,” and hangs up.</p><p>~</p><p>Sam’s expression warps from annoyance to surprise to worry real quick when Dean yanks his headphones off his head, throws his jacket at him. Dean ignores Dad, coming after him from where they’d sat in the adjacent kitchen, door closed while they had talked. “C’mon,” he says, easy, “I gotta get out of here before I start throwing punches. You with me?”</p><p>Sam is, of course.</p><p>Frowning, shivering, still slow on his feet but he catches up, huffing. “What the hell,” he says, no question mark.</p><p>Coffee. Arcade—the semi-stupid fund Dean’s been hoarding for a new Discman, or a new haircut, or a potential date (movies and dinner, classic) gets blown through without regrets. Sam is visibly grateful but Dean supposes he’s thumbing the buttons too aggressively or something to let the kid go at ease. He tries, though, he thinks. He doesn’t know.</p><p>Sam inquires, always so careful: “Does he know where we are?”</p><p>Dean’s silence answers for him.</p><p>“Maybe we should head back?”</p><p>“Not yet.”</p><p>Sam lets him go another bunch of rounds. No more fun. If he’d been under the impression at all that this is for him, Sam realizes now that it—isn’t.</p><p>Slightly firmer, “I wanna go back,” and when Dean doesn’t acknowledge that: “I shouldn’t be standing so much. Said it yourself.”</p><p>“Jesus. All right, grandma.”</p><p>Outside, like Sam wanted. Depth of night and kids with their parents slowly trickle back into their Hondas and Fords; Chuck E. Cheese. Sam and him, their coats, Sam’s dumb hair in the unforgiving wind.</p><p>Dean ruffles that mop so he can then wrap his arm around the kid as they walk. Just so Sam’s nose can wrinkle and Sam’s shoulders can push high into Dean’s armpit, Dean’s ribs. Dean finds himself smiling, finally.</p><p>“Hurts?” Sam shakes his head. “Good. That’s good.”</p><p>~</p><p>Takes fine balance to pretend in front of Sam fucking Winchester. About Dad, of all things. That, no, I’m not upset, nothing to worry about. I’m just—you know how it is. You, out of all people on this planet, Sammy. His brother accepts that. For now.</p><p>Dad is—even if he does something insane, most times, it turns out to be right (somehow), and it saves their asses. Collateral damage here and there, of course, but. Nothing major. Most times.</p><p>But, this.</p><p>This is…</p><p>It just doesn’t make sense.</p><p>Dad’s been repeating it to him over and over and over and Dean sometimes talks along just to piss Dad off, get him all irritated and, “Is this funny to you?” and he says,</p><p>“No, sir.” No. No and no.</p><p>Lives like ours, there’s no place for that kind of risk. Can you imagine? What they’d do to him? You can, can’t you? He wouldn’t want that. To be so—vulnerable. He’d compromise every hunt. He’d need to be watched, protected—we can’t provide that, Dean. When I realized he’d be…! I wasn’t gonna lose my son; I couldn’t. If you had been in my shoes, you would have done the same, <em>trust me</em>.</p><p>No point in telling him: but that’s what <em>I do</em>. That’s what I’ve been doing <em>all my life</em>, Dad; keeping him safe. It would have been fine. I would have—I <em>could</em> have.</p><p>Feels less worse to ask, instead: “If <em>I</em> would have been…y’know?”</p><p>He can’t even say it.</p><p>Dad just holds up their eye contact. “Yes,” he says.</p><p>Dean looks away, then, and doesn’t look at their father again for what feels like a long, long time.</p><p>~</p><p>It hurts, sometimes, when he allows it. Or when he lets his guard down. When he doesn’t expect it.</p><p>At night, mostly. In bed or in the car, driving. Dad, snoozing or writing; Sam in the back, quiet at this time of night (reading, if he’s got batteries left for the flashlight).</p><p>How he’s just—there. Even if…even if there’s…</p><p>Dean imagines it like a puzzle piece, missing.</p><p>When he’s got his baby brother close, in a hug or a choke hold or just because they’re so used to it, and Sam complains or just lets him or doesn’t even notice (used to be like this, always)—how there is a lack now where there hadn’t been one before. A skipped step. Dean stumbles. Like they cut something out of him as well.</p><p>Sam is too young to, like—hell, they don’t talk about dating, or the future<br/>
(not seriously, anyway, not without a <em>haha</em> slapped over it). But, maybe—when he’s older, he might want to. A mate. A baby, even. Hell, even <em>Betas</em> can have bio children; will Sam think <em>aw just my luck I guess</em> and not question it further? If he goes to see a doc, will they—know? Will they <em>ask</em>?</p><p>A mate. Sam’s scent now resembles cardboard, bland and tasteless. He’s still so small, so young, but Dean remembers the hint of something that <em>had been there</em> all along, already—something. Below too many layers of—them, sticking together so much. Nothing, maybe, just—in Dean’s head. Dean’s imagination.</p><p>Sam’s always been reclusive. Pushed Dean away much more often than the other way around, demanded space where Dean didn’t see any need. Always. That feeling of—it all being too much. Like he couldn’t breathe with Dean around. That might have changed, if… Or not. Maybe even worsened. Both make sense.</p><p>Sam turns thirteen, fourteen, and he doesn’t talk about it but Dean imagines the—disappointment. Dean had presented at thirteen; perfectly normal for an Alpha.</p><p>Omegas show at eleven, twelve. So, it would have only made—sense.</p><p>And Sam grows; he does. Tall and aching and he’s irritated a lot, growls a lot. Stuck, he might think, between—like his body wanted something but never finished it. Will never finish it.</p><p>Both Dad and Dean Alphas, a Beta… It doesn’t make sense. Happens, but.</p><p>Sam sighs a lot. Hides in Dean’s too-big clothes a lot. His chest is perfectly flat like he’s still a child, like he’s an Alpha or a Beta. Nothing. Body hair, even—sparse, functional; thick in his pits, actually, eventually. Sam gets good at avoiding being seen naked, no matter how close their quarters.</p><p>His cheeks are somewhat flushed when he confesses: “I, uhm. I might have gotten detention because Suzy Meyers and I got caught making out in the girls’ bathroom,” and Dean yelps to make the embarrassment worse, give Sam a reason to punch him in the tit, frown at him like this is betrayal.</p><p>It’s half-dark and the bathroom is moldy and Dean teases, “Criminal,” under the scratchy blanket they share because the heater is busted and Dean complained until Sam had lowered himself like honest-to-God monarchy. “So, first base or what?”</p><p>Sam urges, “Stop it,” and Dean can taste his breath, can taste the hint of humiliation and anger and—a hint of excitement, maybe; he isn’t sure. Not what he’s used to from others. A cheap knock-off, watered down next to Sam’s nervous sweat, the grime of a couple of days of neglected hygiene.</p><p>“You liked it?” he asks, because he genuinely wants to know. If Sam’s all right, if he’s—if he can enjoy. If he can feel. “You think <em>she</em> liked it?”</p><p>Sam mumbles, “Screw you,” and he’s all warm, and Dean thinks—if things were different, would they still be as close as they are now? Would it be—awkward?</p><p>“Omega? Alpha?”</p><p>“Omega.” Dean nods. “She, uh. She invited me to her birthday party next week; I dunno. I dunno.”</p><p>“Oh, sweet. Free pass to panty town,” and he gets punched for that again, and he laughs.</p><p>Sam lets him hook his hand into the back of his knee though.</p><p>Gives only the slightest resistance when Dean pulls, gets it over his hip.</p><p>Mutters, “You’re such a douche,” and for once, Dean is glad that Sam can’t smell as much as he doesn’t smell.</p><p>~</p><p>Sam makes jokes about how Dean always goes for the skinny ones. If he has something to confess to. If that’s his fetish or something.</p><p>They’re not always Omegas. He likes to pretend with Betas, too. An Alpha even, once. Weird but…good. Good enough.</p><p>His ruts are like clockwork. Imperative. Sam doesn’t comment, doesn’t—smell Dean. Them, on Dean. Dean ditches a wash a bunch of times just to coax a reaction from his brother, but—nothing.</p><p>Once, Sam snaps, “Dude, you <em>reek</em>,” but doesn’t specify and doesn’t entertain the conversation further after Dean’s <em>oh trust me, you wished you reeked like this</em>. Leaves him hanging, like a joke. Like Dean missed a cue and it’s gone now. Picked it up the wrong way. Something-something.</p><p>Sixteen, seventeen. Sam opens up: “Sure, I have. Couple of times, back in—” and Dean tries to remember the names Sam had dropped, if there had been clues, faces. Sam hadn’t talked a lot, Dean thinks.</p><p>After Sam leaves that first time and Dean checks in on him, he seems—okay. Doing fine, considering the circumstances. He allows Dean to visit him, pay for bad coffee. Seated in that too-posh school cafeteria with his brother dressed in that brand-new school sweater, decent sneakers, nice thrifted jeans, it’s—it makes sense that Sam feels better, here, where Dean feels like an outlier.</p><p>“I’m good,” he says, like Dean can be happy for him. “It’s weird and—a lot, but. It’s pretty awesome. Like, I still can’t believe I made it.”</p><p>Dean tells him, “That’s great,” and some weird part of him means it, too.</p><p>~</p><p>After Sam dies that first time and after he comes back that first time, things are not as complicated anymore, as fucking weird as that might sound, because Dean comes to terms with it, then.</p><p>He doesn’t talk about it. Not in a way some part of him thinks it’d be right, at least. But this is not about him. He won’t be the one left behind, the one who will have to deal with it.</p><p>It’s a long-short year. Sam’s desperation grows while Dean just—lets go. He’s not happy, no. But sometimes he is.</p><p>(When it’s just—them. And Sam insists on that a lot, like the world is scary again and it’s somehow <em>his</em> turn to be worried about <em>Dean</em>. When they’re just stupid and boring and having mediocre food and the weather is meh and the hunts are tiring, just—that. Them, with each other. After watching over Sam’s corpse all those days, after having lost him—it’s a miracle. The price seems reasonable.)</p><p>Cas, and Ruby, and—he can’t catch his breath for years. Tossed and shaken and Sam has changed, <em>is</em> changing. When Dean bargains with Gadreel, gives Sam up like this is Lucifer all over again, and Dad had been right in a way, hadn’t he—not wanting to be someone else’s, remain in control, bodily autonomy and self-determination which he <em>would</em> have lost the moment he would have presented, not long after—well. That old man. Always a step ahead. Like Dean could never be, somehow.</p><p>Sunglasses, Sammy’s too-long arm in that sling. Warm enough that it’s comfortable out here—lake and sun and beer. Wide knees, both of them. They don’t touch.</p><p>Dean just—watches. Back again, with Sam so changed yet again. Brittle, tired. Dean thinks of how he’d felt after that jump, after the earth had swallowed his brother and left Dean behind. Of how Sam must have felt when Dean and Cas had warped off into Purgatory, or a couple of months back, when Dean’s corpse had walked out of the room Sam had carried it to. That security cam footage—Dean wants to see that, someday soon. But no rush. Not now.</p><p>Back with each other, again. No matter what, this is always how—they seem to end up. Dean has long stopped questioning it.</p><p>A home, now. A place to return to, and Dean hasn’t thought of it in a while, just because…spilled milk and all that. And he <em>likes</em> what they have. He truly does.</p><p>Sam just—so free, in a way. A way he wouldn’t have been. Dean can see that now. It still hurts but—they’re here. Together.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>